Smash!

•F O R T Y N I N E•

Jamie's POV

"Left, right. Left, right. Left, right!" Nate chants off tune from behind us. Being held at gun point, Riley and I have no choice but to trudge up the stairs with Riley leading ahead. The barrel of the gun digs into my back, the metal of the gun so excruciatingly hot it's searing my skin through my torn up sweater. The smell of burning sulfur and smoke stings my nose. It's not lost on me if the gun fires off, the bullet could paralyze me, adding another unbearably heavy load of terror to weigh down my soul. As if being brutally killed wasn't terrifying on its own.

My green eyes bore into the back of Riley's head, some of his dark locks plastered to his skin with dried up blood. It's one of the hardest urges not to reach out to touch him as one last fleeting comfort. I know if I act on it, Nate will shoot so many holes in us, we'd be unrecognizable.

"Sing with me!" Nate gleefully singsongs. "Left, right, left, right, left!"

Riley and I stay silent as we march up. I stop walking altogether when Nate buries the gun further into the small of my back, the sound of the safety clicking off. Riley spins around, his face knotted up in a devastated expression that only makes this entire plight all the more terrifying. Seeing it in Riley's face, I know for absolute certainty now we're gonna die. I go cold, the desperation and frantic dying off as my limbs go numb and I spot seeing the world in colors, but nothing except black and white for a moment.

It's feels like I'm dying already. Like I'm blacking out. I'm feeling the sheer difference between facing death, than knowing you're about to die.

"I said sing." Nate snarls. Riley is already belting before Nate finishes his sentence. I blink hard, seeing spots right before the room stops toppling on its side, then straightens out around me.

"You too, Ginger." Grabbing a fistful of my red hair, the rings on his fingers pulling on the knots in my hair. He pulls so hard, tears pool in eyes. I clamp my mouth shut at the pain, refusing my last words be this.

"I said," A chill runs down my spine at the sound of metal. I feel something cool against my skull. "Sing."

"Don't!" Riley stops singing as he watches in horror. A rip goes through the air. I whimper at the violent tug. Locks of my red hair fall at my feet, a tangle cry bursting through my throat. When Nate let's go, I feel what's left fall down to my shoulders, the jagged ends brushing my cheeks as it falls right above my shoulders.

"Keep goin'," Nate orders, nudging the gun hard into a back bone that I find the power to move feet, and continue up. I try not to step on my own hair, I try even harder not to look back at it. "All the way up to the roof."

Riley and I both stiffen, each stressing over this new problem. How do we get to the roof? There's no clear way up there. Not even Riley seems to know how to. But Nate knows.

"Straight that way." Nate's boots purposely land down hard at the back of my shoes as he aims his gun at how we originally got in. The emergency exit stairwell.

We were so sure that we were being careful, but Nate knew about our secret passage way this entire time. Our feet knowingly find their way up the cement stairs in the dark stairwell, every pad of our feet echoing like a reminder that we're walking closer and closer to our deaths.

When we reach the top, Riley risks looking back at me over his shoulder before pushing the door open. Without a sound, tears drip down his face as he mouths the words "I'm sorry."
Swilling the lump in my throat, I silently chant what I've always wanted to tell Riley, "You're not perfect, but you're not the mistakes you've made."
"Your mistakes don't define you."
"I forgive every single of your mistakes, I hope you don't hold the ones I made against me, but you need to forgive yourself."